Manny Yospa 0:03
This is the BECTU history project. We're doing interview number 354. Dawn Stanford Stanhope I get for some unknown reason, I guess it's called Stanford 23rd of may 1995. That's it. Okay. But okay.
Stanley Forman 0:31
Dawn can I begin with your birth. Where were you born
Dawn Stanford 0:36
I was born in Canada, in a little town called Ghanokri?, eleventh of September 1931.
And
Stanley Forman 0:51
with the economic crisis well underway, but you
Dawn Stanford 1:01
We had an island. Opposite this little town. Yeah. It was not convenient for a doctor to go over that time of year. Yeah. So Jan had to be brought to the main.So that's me. Yeah.
Stanley Forman 1:19
Where were you? Did you have an education?
Dawn Stanford 1:22
Yes i did Oh, first of all, I came over to England in 32.
Stanley Forman 1:28
So you were a tot
Dawn Stanford 1:30
before my first day, right. I went I had all sorts of schooling,
Manny Yospa 1:38
everything from school, what we used to call in the 20s. I went to a different school. Yes. You must have when you're 567. If
Dawn Stanford 1:50
I'm just trying to think I don't know. I think I did. I don't remember it.
Stanley Forman 1:57
What's your first memory?
Dawn Stanford 1:59
My first real memory. But when you're speaking of your education, school memory,
I went to a convent in Haywards Heath Oh, yeah. I think it was called St Joseph's. I'm wrong about that. But I think it was yes. I also went to the fact that oh, I was they close down as soon as the war.They couldn't continue
Stanley Forman 2:27
When you were about 8 yeras oldThat's right. Right.
Dawn Stanford 2:30
And then I went to I was evacuated for a very short time, to a place
where do we get to the childhood of that world war of evacuate world evacuated,
I was evacuated for a short time to a place called Cheney's it was the Duke of Bedford
and I went to the little village school. con't say that I liked it. Oh, actually, I wanted to be somebody else's family. Yeah. And they were particularly elderly.
Stanley Forman 3:13
These two ways, the meetings or
Dawn Stanford 3:17
they were very cold. And I had to spend the majority of my time in church. So I was in choir went to Sunday school, I sang at everybody's weddings and funerals. And today, it was a bit of a shock coming form the convent
Because this is now Church of England. Yeah. All right. So both camps, right. So then I I was whipped out of there by Jaron and Jill when they realise that this is not entirely what they want. And as a stepping gap, yeah. Grace Thornton, who was one of the mayors that the mayors met was Jan. She had her parents lived in Kettering. So I went up to stay with them for a little while. And I mean, it was a small while.
Stanley Forman 4:16
War was still on.
Dawn Stanford 4:17
Oh, yes, definitely. And then because of the because of the bombing, Kettering was getting bombed. I was ripped out of there and sent straight down to Dartington? And so that's so that's really an I stayed there till I was 17.
Yes, I did. Well, just because they've got all sorts of
ideas. I mean, farming, music, music, acting and all the others. Those are my favourites. I wasn't particularly scholastic
Stanley Forman 5:06
Agriculture
Dawn Stanford 5:07
Yeah. Yes. I loved it. I began to you know,
Stanley Forman 5:15
you were too young for the women's land army.
Dawn Stanford 5:21
This thing is, this was wartime and Dartington. People were being taken away. So every child had to do useful work. Yeah. So whether it was in the kitchen, or whether it was polishing floors or cleaning up those classrooms and what's your my choice was to go down to the farm and do that. So that's how I got into lining, liking the land. Great. And so I mean, it was really I, when I first moved to Dartington, I was pretty unhappy. And very, very homesick. And I left and I went to a rather horrible School of my own choice, which I found so horrible. I pleaded to go back to Dartington. And it was the one time when a Bill Kerry, who was a master there, and a great friend of Germans that
normally they did.
pretty strange.
So I then got into acting and really, yes, I used to flush when anybody looked at me, I was that bad
that was a very, from my point of view, a very, very good school. Because it
it brought me
and there was all sorts of children there for various reasons. they've, they've come from Poland, gone through the awful times. Everybody was they all had some sort of problem so we weren't unique. You know what happened to you after? after I left Dartington. I was I was learning to play the cello. And I started when I came home, and I finished school. I worked with Roy Paul. Oh, yeah, I was doing my training, of course is to the chairman to make to really do it in a professional way. But I still was interested in it until I came across this teacher who said a granddaughter of Louise Trenton should be a bit better than this with that I put the cello down.
be cruel.
Certainy shy one
Unknown Speaker 7:52
on one.
Dawn Stanford 7:52
So go on. Oh, yes.
I decided I wanted to design costumes. Yes, I went to what's it called? Nathan's?
I paid
Manny Yospa 8:14
to go there as a sort of apprentice. Right.
Dawn Stanford 8:17
And I was there for? I think it was probably about two and a half years. Yeah. I then went down to Charlotte Street. Yes. And learn to mass produce in the cutting field. I was just learning counting. Yeah. So I did that. Which was backbreaking to say the least and those guys
Manny Yospa 8:43
are clothes cutting all film cutting.
My father was a tailor a master tailors about the smutter trends, right. Big electrical. It was it was very hard.
Dawn Stanford 8:59
And you had to get there seven o'clock. You had to ask us to go to the toilet. You will be given permission. You had quarter of an hour for lunch and you finished at six in the evening. And you stood all day long, sort of glorified imprisonment, that that was really so I've done what I set out to do
as much as I could there. And then I had a little bit of a holiday. Yeah.
But it's really funny. It's the only place that I've ever been to where I'd have been really rejected. Because of that I didn't speak the same way as everybody else. Because you spoke. posh Right. Nobody would speak which, after a while, I didn't want to hear that chitchat but it was funny that we've heard for, well, you know, you get used to to it after a while you were so tired.
Anyhow.
Oh, well then I then I got a job with Keith Prowse Oh, yeah. Ticket agents. Yeah. Right. And I kind of fit my way through it as always, if you have a
telephone switchboard, you can type but you don't have to type very well. But you can
see. And very soon I was running the postal division. And the telephone bit I was people would ring us up for tickets or anything I would do that. And I would put the calls from the radio department and the record department.
War was over. The war was over. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I liked it. Because I was losing a lot of a lot of actors. Because they had this policy then that they could go off and have minutes notice for an audition. Yeah. Yeah. And they could, you know, do. If they were if they were so happy to do to get an acting job, they could go off and then come back again. And they'd rather sort of took my fancy.
Yeah. And eventually
Cadbury then took over Peter Cadbury I think the most awful things in the past I'll tell you.
He had the penthouse at the top of Coventry street branch. Yeah. And, I mean, I used to take in stacks of letters that were legitimate. But on two occasions, I took it around. Private mail, of course, you know, how you do you split these off. And you don't even look at it. And so I hope the one and I was reading, Dear Peter oh, my goodness, me being
small, and I had to go take the lift and go up and apologise. Is that all that could happen? I should have told you that it will be delivered to you not to me.
Just be a bit more careful in the future. So two days later, we repeated the whole thing you've all come up with here. And when I had is that I was doing things like when somebody has a hit record. Oh, yeah. They'll have the signing holder. Yeah, whatever. Promotion and publicity, I'd like you to come and just make sure everything is okay. So that was fun.
Manny Yospa 12:53
Yeah, so
Dawn Stanford 12:55
does that. Yeah, I had my own branch, which was at the American Express in Haymarket. So when I first went there, the previous person had taken two pounds, but now he has two pounds 52 back to two parents 10 shillings a week because he couldn't be bothered. No, my first day I'd done something like 200 pounds, and it's built up and built up. And they can we will say, What are you doing? What happened this last person? Because he was in he'd been pushed to somewhere else. And I enjoyed that. Because I was meeting, again, all sorts of people. And whether it was arranging insurance for them, or they've lost something, or they didn't back or whatever it was. It wasn't just there to take absorb that. That's what I was there for. Yeah.
Manny Yospa 13:53
Well, that's good. And that went
Dawn Stanford 13:55
through some code. Yes. And then I, I met Jeffrey, Brian Stanford. And that was in 1958. There again you're known here since? Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. And he was, of course, naturally much older than me. Yeah. He was very, very good with Children. Yeah. And I used to go and listen to his John soprano, and classical music and it was kind of fun. Yeah. Because he's in the war time. Yeah.
When you went away to school, when you came back, they weren't your friends.
Yeah, so I didn't have local friends. So it was very nice to have somebody who would take a bit of notice of people liking music and that sort of thing. So I sort of liked him when he drifted off. Because I actually we met him again in 58
and
Well, I was not much. I
went to join him. He had a company called film service limited. Yeah, yeah. in Upper Montague Street. And he was making documentaries.
Yes. Medical to film. Yeah.
Because he was originally a radiologist. So he showed selfing interest in the films.
Manny Yospa 15:28
And for medical record, he was a medical.
Dawn Stanford 15:30
And then he found that the equipment that he was working with, wasn't good enough. And so he was trying to improve develop plans. So that's why he left radiology and started his own film company. And then progress was saying, well, in training field training films, first of all,
Manny Yospa 15:57
any medical nurses,
Dawn Stanford 16:00
for nursing, we did all the Milton sterilised equipment, and these used to be shown to, well, anybody that had a kitchen or
Manny Yospa 16:15
a child, they were very good films you know knows where I came in, that was around.
Dawn Stanford 16:21
Right? Very good films. And he made one particular film, which
was quite
famous in its own right. It was called an unaided delivery, which was the birth of the baby. Yeah. And it was actually filmed in a hospital, though, that the hospital was not made to look that it was like, this was an emergency it was. And it was shown to taxi drivers and ambulance drivers and firemen. And
Manny Yospa 16:52
they had to contend with a woman giving birth in an aeroplane
Dawn Stanford 16:58
was really made for in the first instance, was going into these camps in Germany with displaced persons. The things that people might, you know, this was one of the things that they probably weren't going to need to read. So that was re edited and re edited and re edited. And then it was, as he always looking, we used to make videos never show in an all male audience or an all female audience, put them together because they bolster each other.
Manny Yospa 17:35
You use you had no film experience for
Dawn Stanford 17:42
driving in. Did you?
Yes.
And
I just had to learn it. I had to learn it the way that
Manny Yospa 17:55
you know, it. Was it all done on 16 millimetre or 35?
Dawn Stanford 18:01
Well, most most of it was 16. But we did do. 35
Well, we were
we were particularly interested at that moment, in ektachrome. Because that was just the newest, newest thing. Yeah. And so we were doing lots of trials. Before with that film.
Manny Yospa 18:27
The company was financially afloat. So it was dicey or
Dawn Stanford 18:32
Well, up and down. It was up and down. And you probably noticed that at one point, documentary film companies took a dive. I mean, all of a sudden, there was every Tom Dick and Harry film company for one film. Yeah. And then that was it and that gave the documentary film world has existed and had existed a very, very bad, name completely different way to keep going until 69. And that was
Manny Yospa 19:10
up to 42 rule 14 hours. editing the camera, lighting,
Dawn Stanford 19:20
everything with us. And when we had to.
We had other crews,
Manny Yospa 19:29
camera, freelance crew
Dawn Stanford 19:31
staff that we could call at moment's notice if we needed to, because they enjoyed it.
Manny Yospa 19:37
Yeah.
Dawn Stanford 19:38
Because it was always something quite new. I mean, we might be down a coal mine, mine one minutes or whatever, because we did do our medical
Manny Yospa 19:49
Dawn who conceived the contract. I mean the programme. Let's do this. Let's do that.
Dawn Stanford 20:02
Jeff, Jeffrey, yes, he is for the very longest time. But we were with I mean, we've as a BMA's favourite
Film Company, okay. Yeah. And they would come to us and say, well, you need a film on such and such. But we've only got that put it down immediately. It was only somebody like Jeff and myself that would
Manny Yospa 20:31
work on the lower budget
Dawn Stanford 20:32
here, technically. So now, after a while, I began to take over more of that, because you'd have to know Jeff to know that once he thinks once he thought that he had perfected what he was doing, he was doing, he was on to the next thing. So that was the whole hold before. Really. Yeah. So understanding that I ended up doing, I mean, incredible films like I was the Aston Martin was opening. Oh, yeah. had had six different film companies tried to make a film for them they said would actual like to try.
But I also felt that it was rubbish, rubbish, that I had to retrieve some of it because of there again, I was on a small budget. So budget, because it was Aston Martin and David Brown,
Manny Yospa 21:56
real real firms.
Dawn Stanford 21:59
And so I did I the things that I put into it, to jazz it up a bit with aerial shots. So I like flying.
Ready to do something I want to do. So
I created a feature in a De Havilland Dove, which is a very small plane
and because we're Aston Martins have them the factory to suppose for all the cars out. And of course, all the way around there. They're all the other car factories do. So every parking space. Could that be so we have to zoom down and in the De Havilland I would leave as a member of the crew each time. So I ended up actually filming the film myself because
I was on the pilot.
Yeah. That's how I got more and more.
Manny Yospa 22:56
That really you were a filmmaker?
Dawn Stanford 22:58
Yes.
So the other
thing that we did, you might be interested in that we we did archive films
in as much as Archie McIndoe the famous plastic surgery, plastic surgery. So we just really felt that that must go into the archives because nobody else thought of it. So a man called Lister is still
famous in the medical profession. All sorts of distinguished? men. Well, whoever
Manny Yospa 23:39
Anyway, my thing though is felt empty. Remember
Dawn Stanford 23:43
one beforehand? Yeah.
That was that was not painful. But this was asked to fit the BMA.s got almost
Manny Yospa 23:58
going on with it in the mid 60s when the thing cold it When did you push the stuff to the BMA? What happens all the material? You really want to know well, it will not show Yes. It's not in the cellar downstaire
Dawn Stanford 24:14
So no, I'm afraid it is even worse than that. Except that there are other copies of it. But all the material Yeah, I lost my house in the country in Southwick went with the house. And you know, that was a bit sad. But there was no way that either, you know, this was a five storey building, and there's no way around it.
Manny Yospa 24:44
Yeah, and the storage space and good storage space for that. So then what happens to you
Dawn Stanford 24:51
Well in between all that, while we're doing films, and also all the films that were useful in the teaching field, I have my own film library. And I used to send all the films out preschool, all the nursing schools.
So all the hospitals got regularly, all the Medical Teaching work.
We did all sorts of interesting things. I mean, for instance, one of the earliest films, I remember was the tuberculosis and children. Can you believe that we had difficulty in finding children who had tuberculosis? In Britain? Yes. We really had a difficulty we had to go to Wales, in order to in order to shoot that. And we did the first hole in the heart operation down in Southampton on a pretty, pretty little girl.
I think she's about12 years old which was successful.
Of course, that was able to be shown to so many eligible surgeons.
Manny Yospa 26:20
So when they all folded, what happened to you?
Dawn Stanford 26:23
Well we both we were at that time trying to survive. And at the same time we're trying to keep make endoscopes Yeah. All right. Oh, right. And we've been building up the equipment side of the companies. So we first of all, the film surveys them together with firms, fill surveys, equipment, limited, and then optic, limited. And we got we made endoscopes medical and industrial
and
improve fibre optics, yes. Even down to actually spinning them ourselves. Where do you know it was going great, because you had that thing you could go down in one of these chambers? Was that terrible stuff? Oh, yeah. We did it for the atomic.
Atomic Energy people.
up at Windscale Here's what
they were doing. They may drop something in can't remember once we made it 30 foot
Endascope
was about this great usually. And but. And I almost got to the place. What actually got what people from Wednesday have come down and accepted. Our bonds. I took her to
Manny Yospa 27:55
Salt Lake ventures.
Dawn Stanford 27:58
And I said to Jeff, as these people refer to this person, the man is at the end of that endoscope.
And he's going into atomic force what's to stop him from getting roasted if it's a straight line. Oh, my God. He said, Oh, I have to make a telephone call. So we came up from this bumps. And Bang at least Oh, revision window. Yes. And so it was made into a curve. And yeah, I mean, couldn't come directly. But that they, of course, as you know, very well. Windscale did have
Manny Yospa 28:45
is for people who don't know, can you just explained it was an endoscope is
Dawn Stanford 28:51
an endoscope is a like a telescope, made of what was done many, many, many lenses all the way down. That's the original one. And it depending on the diameter of work, or what you're going to use it. You could even with a rigid frame, you could film inside somebody's lung. Later on, we've made it with fibre optics, so that you could spend all the rest of it and we made them smaller and smaller and smaller, so that we could actually get an endoscope into somebodies live pumping heart and see what was wrong without too much damage. In fact, it was so small that when you put it out to your eye, you have the greatest difficulty in aligning it with watching. It was so small. I was
Manny Yospa 29:44
really fascinated you're the people who permitted this.
Dawn Stanford 29:48
Well, there's the original endoscope, I believe was called a negus, which nobody could see through. They all the surgeons pretend they could. They couldn't. It was just the whole procedure. And this is why Jeff's has he looked? I must do something about this. So he then wrote a small book. And it was a monograph, I think which he proved that endoscopes never could work. He got it printed season. Of course, I'm going to prove that they aren't going to be wonderful. And that's what this is a big laugh
today about this.
And we used it for all sorts of things. I mean, it was used down at Farnborough where they take all the bits and pieces of aircraft that crashed, and they didn't have to take them apart anywhere. You could put the endoscope in without ruining the looking. Well, yes, you didn't want to take it off, because you're really the evidence. So we had that they were in with that. A Concorde was on the designing board. And we should have had an endoscope with each Concorde. But I think the Concorde did I think we'd already gone to America by the time that's it. So that never didn't happen. But so I was, you know, Jeffrey was always going off and do some research into something. And he was into all sorts of things. you're beginning to get interest in pollution and ozone and all these sort of things.
Manny Yospa 31:47
We call the ecology.
Dawn Stanford 31:51
Well, I was
very interested in that.
And we couldn't hang on any longer. It was just me. Yeah. So it was just absolutely so complicated. It was unbelievable. And we can hang on when we shouldn't make them. So we've we're making it more
Manny Yospa 32:10
difficult, but you couldn't get away from these mostly not medical research curves.
Dawn Stanford 32:18
All it all closed down. Right.
All these all these new companies are coming up and giving us a bad name.
I suppose.
We only have about two states. Yeah. And I have a three year sorry. Always, truly went to California first.
Manny Yospa 32:51
Where we have the Seven Pistols? Yes.
Dawn Stanford 32:55
Yes, yeah. Because I just we just arrived. Christmas of 69. Yeah. And so Jeff is torn between
architects
and engineers, as a medical professional, who wants to get them all talking to each other, designing things that work. And the architects should know what they need to know about a hospital, how do they function there's, there's no putting the laundry and if you couldn't get the laundry out.
Manny Yospa 33:35
So|Jeff is a special sort of mediaeval inventor really
Dawn Stanford 33:40
and a bit of a grasshopper
in that sense. So
Manny Yospa 33:47
the American,
Dawn Stanford 33:48
it was very good. It was it was very good, because he went from there. And he's taught at another college called Antioch, which was of a progressive,
Manny Yospa 34:00
small,
Dawn Stanford 34:02
he was able to really do it in a good way. Then he went on to Texas, where we're now into completely into ecology, if you like, but in a bigger way, in that we were now doing research into how to turn the arid zones into
into green phases. And so we had lots of big projects,
which was very interesting, because we took all the stuff that people didn't want, and it was garbage. And as he said, garbage just go and made the desert grow things. And of course, if you get trees to grow in the desert, it then is no longer a desert because the rains come as soon as you get through the trees, and then we got food and all that and everybody was very excited,
but he lost
interest in it. They're not moved on and I had to carry it on. So that was it. Something else? Very strange.
Manny Yospa 35:12
Yeah. restless this. Yeah. Yeah. And when did that finish that period, that American period.
Dawn Stanford 35:25
I, I came, I came back.
I didn't know I was coming back at the time. But I came back in 82 84 is when I actually arrived back.
And I had
done everything and I was really home sick.
Manny Yospa 35:47
Because I didn't really want to go to America. were children around your kids?
Dawn Stanford 35:52
I haven't. I haven't got any children . But he had three children. And they were around for some of the time. They were certainly in England, but in America, they were there on extended stays and things like that.
Manny Yospa 36:08
They accepted you.
Stanley Forman 36:11
Sort of
Dawn Stanford 36:13
Yes.
It was that was very awkward. Because I'm used to bend over backwards to make sure that they had everything on record now. And in return, what I get got was was is that you know, is that daddy's chair? Or is it your chair?
Yes. So I went through that.
What else can I say to
you about when I came back here? Where did I get a job? That was a national.
Manny Yospa 36:49
a truce.
Dawn Stanford 36:52
I was in the house visiting two artners Well, I wasn't actually healthy certificate because I didn't have the qualifications. But I did everything. And when I
Manny Yospa 37:08
work very, very hard. What region where were you?
Dawn Stanford 37:11
Ladbroke Grove
Which is just
so you just recently retired?
Manny Yospa 37:19
Us? You just left the Healthn Centre
Dawn Stanford 37:22
I just couldn't stand it any
Manny Yospa 37:25
time we're gonna do news.
Dawn Stanford 37:26
Yeah. And I really, I can honestly say that I couldn't have stayed there a minute longer. As a much I'm in favour of the health service. And I thought I'd done my best. Yeah, well, of course, you and it's being ruined. So now we're trying to live off in this awful business of skill mix. where nobody is master of their own trade anymore. And that they're what they're trying to do is to bring in people who are clerk's, and make them attend to somebody tell me Well, I must say it's, you know,
Manny Yospa 38:05
Virginia Bottomley one, so for people angry, indeed. I mean, I really don't want to talk but they're confronted with a situation where they've got the entire national health service arranged up against midwives to nurses to help structure the whole infrastructure of the health service living in the EU, all doctors are very reactionary backs, you know. They would vote Tory, so
the man
is the comrade doctors, you know, a couple of hands.
Dawn Stanford 38:51
First went into the Health Service Everybody that I worked with was definitely told me I was the only one who became a union member.
Manny Yospa 39:01
Yes, cosy.
Dawn Stanford 39:05
Creepy. And everybody says
Why not? Nothing wrong with me.
They're going to find me if I need to.
And so gradually, as things got worse and worse. When I left I was happy to tell you that there wasn't one single person in the clinic where I worked that was now fully labour. If they do do that, and strike I'm sure that we'll all do it. Whereas when I first went there, there was no
Manny Yospa 39:50
Oh, oh, I think you've done marvellously but you up to now Dawn.
Dawn Stanford 39:59
Yes, I'm doing This
Manny Yospa 40:02
is something that can turn over turn over....................................................
Manny Yospa 0:04
So that is the big combination. Yeah. Right,because I'm running now. So
we're ready to roll. So it's really what you're up to now and your glorious perspective of the future. So at the moment, you're writing a book.
Dawn Stanford 0:24
Yes. Well, yes. Well, I'm not writing it gems, right. I am driving through the earliest memories. Things that jazz told me
trying to throw onto however badly onto a sheet of paper with his jam. Now, don't you think you should be writing about that? So?
Manny Yospa 0:53
Yes, of course, it's mother's child. Went di Jeffrey die. Yeah.
Dawn Stanford 1:04
Sorry. Casey's in Texas. And I'm here. Oh,
Manny Yospa 1:08
I'm sorry. Sorry. Forgive me, I assume. that you are a young widow.
Dawn Stanford 1:16
And I'm not divorced. I'm just polite. I've just turned out okay. For
me something. Actually. He was a bit of a genius. Yeah.
He's very difficult to live with a genius. Yeah. It really is. And that's how we just means he's there I'm here. And that's it.
Manny Yospa 1:45
So concentrated on what they are actually doing it they got so
what is he doing? Well, if anything?
Dawn Stanford 1:57
I, I think, see, we used to run every year of our conference so as to protect the wildflowers, particularly in Texas, because that's where we we lived. Yeah. And to begin with, it was a very small thing. Yeah. Many people used to come. And now it's a very big thing. And it's sponsored by people. I'm sure he's, yes. research into how to how to propagate these wildflowrs. Some are easy, some are very difficult.
Manny Yospa 2:37
We wouldn't really into things like aroma therapy or anything like that. Yes. Some various flowers and the use of old alternative health things similar, yes. Becoming
Dawn Stanford 2:52
Now obviously,
Manny Yospa 2:54
coming racket, which is,
Dawn Stanford 2:56
yeah. But they
Manny Yospa 2:58
there was a little measure of mileage that we got out of it
Dawn Stanford 3:01
I used to, in the States, I used to teach people how to, to bake and do, it was just not quite as simple as that. I used to mainly go out and grow their wheat, and then mill their wheat, and then make the bread and eat it. Go make the wine in the same way. And all those sorts of things, which is very popular. It's become very popular these days. So in a way, you're right, because we didn't we had all sorts of people coming in
Manny Yospa 3:39
to teach people were you involved with politics either there or here. No golfito
Dawn Stanford 3:48
political
Jeff was totally unpolitical.
One,
I had a one experience when I overstayed my original permission. I had not gotten a visa because on my Canadian Passport you are allowed to,spend six months. Oh, my God, what have I done She said, I have to then go out of Texas into Canada to repay which is today's date. We know each state has their own different places in Canada that they say talk. So I had to go to Winstanley. I didn't know anybody. And in the you have to go to the consul there. And they gagreed Yeah, they did it most time. And a tremendous they were very nice person around in a very nice conversation. She suddenly said to me, oh, there's something wrong with your application. Oh I wonder what that is
and at that moment in flies a man unannounced and everything, and you've got to let me stay here, you've got to do this. You've got to I've got to get married. I've got to do this. And it was during the time of the Vietnam Dodgers. Yeah. And he made such a kerfuffle. By the time she actually managed to get him out of the room. She'd almost forgotten what she was saying. And she was so apologetic to myself. So So she's here you are. Good luck. And
Manny Yospa 5:32
that wouldn't be difficult. That was as close to you that's a McCarthyism not much
Dawn Stanford 5:37
Yeah. But and also, you know, it could have been, yeah, I wasn't going to be very difficult. Here's Jeff in Texas. Yeah. I's in Winslow Yeah, yeah. No, able to support myself, because I don't know a soul there
Manny Yospa 5:55
to go pension, by the way from the NHS.
Dawn Stanford 5:59
No I didn't, I wasn't there long enough to go. I just paid into superannuation. And it was both. So it's just ridiculous. But I wasn't in it long enough to make it useful. Yeah. You have to be in. And then it can be very useful there, but not the amount of time
you have the gap in between.
Yeah. And of course, the my government pension order. It's very naughty. Because what they've done is, even though I worked full time, full time I went to America. They only take my payments, from the time that I started work when I came back.
Manny Yospa 6:56
The lawyers have
Dawn Stanford 6:58
done everything. And they just say that is this government. And that's all just too bad.
Manny Yospa 7:03
Yeah. monstrous. I think the dirty
Dawn Stanford 7:06
trick? Yes, it is. But that's to
Unknown Speaker 7:10
assess if you could expand a bit more on your actions when you were actually filming. Can they making films?
Dawn Stanford 7:19
Well, no, can I say I was one minute scriptwriting the next time, I would be actually behind the camera. Not I wasn't very knowledgeable about this. Lots of things were set up like this when we do endoscope. Yeah, of course I knew about endoscopes. And I knew how to run the box of tricks you have to have. So of course, naturally, I was the one who was doing that. and sending them the lesson. Take it away to be there.
Manny Yospa 7:55
Because it impacted you on the actual most of your medical film, isn't it?
Dawn Stanford 8:02
Yes. lot of people couldn't get in to do that. Because they didn't have the medical background. It was wonderful because Jeff did
because of his other film activities. Well, he will. He wasn't, he was a member of this that and the other
photographic society and all this business. He wasn't very long before was quite well known.
Manny Yospa 8:33
Whatever you want to say whatever the problem is, and clear. There's been quite a few. You're remarkable blokes.
Dawn Stanford 8:39
Oh, yeah. They. And one of my main jobs is to make sure that if we, if we had, like, 42 people, you know, is that the film? That film took that amount of people, that I keep them all happy because Jeffrey Unfortunately, it was not. He was such a perfectionist, that he couldn't stand anybody who
Manny Yospa 9:01
were they union memebers?
Dawn Stanford 9:06
they were all union members. Not because Jeff insisted on it. They just were and it was very funny. Even, for instance, the electrician. He did, why should he be a particular union member but it alwayss turned out to be Yeah, we had we did exhibitions in Olympia for instance. Yeah. And suddenly Bill was was caught changing a plug. And of course that's a no no. Absolutely no, no. All Out of took the book out of his pocket Oh, all back again.
Yeah. It's no joke
Manny Yospa 9:57
running a couple of people running a Tiny organisation with three staff is bad enough, but 40 odd people because there's always if you've got the law of averages, we got 40 people to look after more than 40 something's gonna go wrong with one of them every week they're gonna fall ill and gonna fall in love and out and all that nonsense
Dawn Stanford 10:20
to film at Warlingham Park hospital, and it was it was making it for William R Warner. I think they've drug people. Oh, yeah. And I think it was the drug that we were
we were brand new I think it was no idea what
it was for mentioned it is no function. Yeah. And it was brilliant. Anyhow, we we had to finish the film money. It was a success and everybody's happy. So they would not go to film because we're used to making six films. And then all of a sudden there was a gap Jeffrey got offered this this commercial to say yes. For Ewars whiskey. Well, what's it What's it called? wanted transparent they wanted this. They wanted this pirate march up and down in his kilt and this had to be black background.
Manny Yospa 11:36
Because the image,
Dawn Stanford 11:38
okay, for that background, where we're gonna shoot is how we're gonna shoot it. And I'm trying to interject, I have, we're gonna do that. We'll do it atv Warlingham Par HospitalAnd without cost. We'll we'll do it at night. Here's your black background whenever this man marching up and down palying his bagpies So it's a good idea. So this is now we're gonna finish the lectures for this, because I mean, this was in days with a big phone. Yeah. So we even got the whole of the track? of the the hospital. Yeah, completely in darkness. And we've taken all their all their electricity. And well, one thing after another, we have four cameraman all lined up. In case one thing happened and another you know. First thing that happened was the mist came down. One camera down and then another one. Then there was no film in the other three nights in a row. We did that. On the third night we got in we got it all . And every camera was running. It was just a series of awful things iand your for to never ever happene to you
as we were doing this. It was these hands are coming taps you. You heard it was this. This is a mental hospital.
That is Scott Perry shows.
Stuff used cars.
Did you touch reactive? No. Oh, well, I suggest just forget
it. Can't be dangerous.
Manny Yospa 13:30
Yeah, my daughter in law's a psychiatrist.
Unknown Speaker 13:33
You for so many years. I've worked as Dr. Beers. therapist. He ran the Marlborough day hospital. I don't know what happened to it. So by not doing those things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was fantastic. I worked for him for ages and ages. I'd be there 2 30 in the morning. Yeah. You go down to stone. So wherever it was to pick up a guy who's been holding it.
Dawn Stanford 14:14
The butcher knife, our neighbor's phone. Yeah. Your local Samaritans but I didn't know what my
talent was. I can I was the person who brought me in. I don't know why, but it's just very useful thing to have. I think the mantra is, we don't need to do this. We're going to do something else. And they just come like lambs. And so I was very useful.
Manny Yospa 14:43
Ladies.
Both of you
Dawn Stanford 14:46
would never believe this. Because I you know, like, digging in the air and all this sort of thing. We got some mongongo Nuts from the Kalahari Desert. If you have ever had the fortune to see a picture of the mongongo tree, you will know it's always a solitary tree. And there's nothing else growing around it. So we have this brilliant idea that we will get somebody totally illegal to break through but nevertheless they need to
brew
the mongongo now, I actually managed to get them to shoot and all the rest of it and we had this is of course Texas, don't forget, and we had some very lovely Mexican boys.
We used to help
with all sorts of things
make a standard set person along with a knife in one fell swoop one morning he taken
over a lot
last night I was never able to germinatey any other mongongo nuts
Unknown Speaker 16:00
special about them What is special about the mongongo nut`
Dawn Stanford 16:03
well it's it's it's a two part fruit in that it's a nut from the outside. I mean, people will travel days to get them and its a fruit on the inside. And it's very
very nutritious.
So we saw who say yes, but it's for the for the people who live in that area. It's an essential nice resort. Why don't you always see that single tree but no saplings? Nothing?
Why was it well, we don't know. I don't know.
Because I my experiment. had gone one flat
Manny Yospa 16:49
Yeah. Dear friends I love you very deeply. But I'm
Unknown Speaker 16:55
ready to shove off Oh, yes. Yes.
Manny Yospa 16:58
I gotta get
Dawn Stanford 16:59
to say you've done to your leg. He's
Manny Yospa 17:03
very, very much love.........................................................
